The Hunter's Prey
by sovietshadow
Summary: All is not at peace in the Forgotten Realms. But there are those who watch, protecting those who cannot protect themselves. Among those protectors is Drizzt Do'Urden, famed Drow Ranger. This is a Forgotten Realms short story.


**One day I was bored in class so I wrote this (heavily edited) short story. Enjoy!**

**I do not own the Forgotten Realms**

The stalker had now become the stalked. The Hunter looked below, at his would-be prey: a band of orcs, skulking in the shadows towards a sleeping camp of woodsmen. Orcs weren't normally stealthy, and this was no exception. They grumbled and chuckled, dry twigs cracking under their feet. Yet for some reason, the yeomen didn't wake. The Hunter was now their only hope.

The Orcs hastily set up a small area in a clearing to ready their weapons and perform whatever vile rituals they needed to settle the wrath of their Orcish god, Bane. One Orc stepped away from the group, into the line of trees. The Hunter smiled as the Orc milled below him, sealing its doom.

The Hunter pulled out a slim, curved sword and pounced. The Orc never knew what hit it. Falling thirty feet, the Orc was nevertheless silent as he hit the ground and plunged the scimitar down into the Orc's neck. He pulled the weapon out of the Orc's collarbone with a slight sucking sound, unheard by the chanting creatures a mere fifty feet away.

The Hunter crounched down, quietly stalking towards the group. He stopped for a moment, pulling a small statue out of his pouch and setting it on the ground. A dark mist surrounded the statue, before resolving into a panther. But this was no ordinary panther: six hundred pounds of pure muscle, covered in pure black fur the color of the night. The Orcs would never see her coming.

The Hunter smiled, then whispered, "Go get 'em, Guen." The panther growled softly, then disapeared into the moonless night. The Hunter waited patiently, then noticed the panther's yellow eyes across from him, in the bushes at the other end of the camp. The Hunter smiled again, nodding his hooded head. The yellow eyes dipped down, as if the black cat had nodded back.

Then the night exploded into violence. The panther jumped into the middle of the small camp, letting loose with a loud roar. The two dozen Orcs froze, then hooted and screeched as the big cat started scratching at them with her terrible claws. Seeing that the Orcs were distracted, the Hunter jumped up, drawing his second scimitar, this one glowing with a fierce blue light, and joined the fight. Amazingly, the woodsmen remained asleep.

He nimbly leapt into the clearing, scimitar leading. He swept the swords in a wide, graceful arch, killing the first two Orcs before they even knew he was upon them. They soon noticed him as another two fell to his deadly-sharp blades. Facing attacks from both sides, the Orcs did what all Orcs will do when cornered: fight. One swung his crude axe at the Hunter, who smoothly parried the clumsy strike and cut a neat **X** into the Orc's throat.

Another Orc charged at him, only to be crushed to the ground as Guen jumped on its chest. One Orc, bigger than the rest, charged the Hunter with a stone spear. He swiftly riposted with a stab of his own, using the momentum to twist around and place the big Orc between him and the arrow fired from a small Orc bow. As soon as the shot landed in the larger Orc, the Hunter twisted again, pulling the scimitars out of the beast's chest and slashing at another.

He continued moving, flitting between the Orcs and delievering more lethal cuts with surgical precision. Suddenly, another arrow flashed by. The Hunter dodged, but the low flying arrow continued on and struck the panther between the eyes, sending it back to its home on the Astral plane. The Hunter stopped, fixing the Orc who had fired the arrow with a deadly glare.

The Orc visibly gulped as the Hunter fixed it with the lavender stare. The Hunter spun on the spot, corkscrewing with his blades high and low, crisscrossing and stabbing to kill the rest of the Orcs between him and the offending bow-wielder. Suddnely, the one Orc was alone against the Hunter. The green-skin quickly fumbled an arrow onto the bow, then pulled the string back and fired. The arrow narrowly missed the Hunter's face, instead catching his hood and tearing it off his head.

The remaining Orc stared at the Hunter's features in horror. It stuttered, "D-D-D-Dr-Dr-!" Then the Orc's voice was cut off (quite literally) by a scimitar to the throat. The night was suddenly silent again. Despite Guenhwyvar's roars and the rings of steel striking steel, this new silence was what finally woke the woodsmen.. They groggily sat up, rubbing their eyes. A few shook their heads to clear them, but the rest had already spotted the Hunter.

They had not seen the dead Orcs around his feet, the monsters that surely would have slaughtered them; they only saw the black-skinned, white-haired Hunter, holding two gory swords. The yeomen gave a cry of "Drow!" and immediately ran, scrambling over one another to get away. He watched them go, in silence. Then, suddenly, just as fast as the woodsmen had disappeared, he was not the Hunter anymore; He was Drizzt Do'Urden, ranger of Mielikki and the one Free Drow.

Drizzt sighed sadly. The Drow slumped down on a solitary, bloodstained log in the middle of the clearing. He sighed again, wishing that he could again summon Guenhwyvar, the kind panther as much a friend as an ally. But it was too soon since she had "died," and he knew that it was impossible for her to return so soon. Drizzt looked at the sky with his vibrant lavender eyes, past the twinkling stars, and asked one single, sad question:

"Why do they always run?"

**Yes I know it's a pretty sad story at the end, but if you want a tale of awesomeness, you can always read some of my other stories :)**

**Please comment.**


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